There’s nothing illegal about a high-level employee moving from one company to a competing company (especially in California, which bans non-compete agreements). But businesses do still have the right to protect their trade secrets and legitimate business interests in the form of confidential information, especially when it comes to experimental technology.

So although Anthony Levandowski was perfectly within his rights to quit his position developing self-driving technology at Waymo (a division of Google’s parent company, Alphabet) to go work for Uber to develop similar technology, that’s not what Levandowski wanted to do, according to Travis Kalanick’s testimony in a recent corporate lawsuit.

Kalanick, the founder and former CEO of Uber, recently testified in court that he regularly hosted what he called a “jam sesh” at his home. He would invite other Uber executives to his house and they would brainstorm business ideas together. Kalanick testified that Levandowski would sometimes attend these jam sessions while he was still employed by Google. Kalanick said he had wanted to hire Levandowski, but Levandowski wanted to break out on his own and form his own company. Kalanick then came up with a solution in which he could get Levandowski to work for him while still allowing Levandowski to feel as though he had the freedom he wanted. Continue reading